Farmers’ Maize Variety Ranking as a Food-Feed Crop and the Influence of the Feed Attribute on Variety Preference in Selected Mixed Crop-Livestock Production Areas of Ethiopia

The ever increasing population pressure with subsequent dwindling grazing land area pushes greater dependence of livestock on crop byproducts as feed source. There is a hypothesis that maize producers in the mixed farming system value the feed attribute of maize varieties for adoption. This study was conducted to investigate farmers’ rankings of maize varieties as a food-feed crop and analyze the influence of the feed attribute as described by the potential utility index in addition to grain production. The preference data generated from the study were fitted to a multinomial logit model. Results of the ranking exercise showed that BH660 was the highest in grain, stover and digestible stover yields whereas it was least in terms of palatability followed by BH540. Socio-economic variables which included education level of the household head, farming experience, family size, farm size, livestock ownership, access to credit and access to extension service, and the variety attribute - potential utility index (PUI) - influenced farmers’ maize variety preference. The results generally support the hypotheses set regarding factors that influence farmers’ preference to improved maize varieties. Moreover, strong indications that livestock owning farmers do show preference to maize varieties that are with desirable stover characteristics for feeding livestock in addition to grain yield were evident.